Japan to postpone talks with North Korea: KyodoTokyo (AFP) Dec 01, 2012 -
Japan will postpone talks with North Korea after it announced plans to launch a rocket later this month, Kyodo news agency said Saturday, days before diplomats from the two countries were due to meet.

North Korea will launch a rocket between December 10 and 22, said official Korean Central News Agency earlier on Saturday, in what will be the country's second long-range rocket launch this year following a much-hyped but failed attempt in April.

Senior Japanese and North Korean diplomats had been due to meet in Beijing on December 5-6 following rare talks in Mongolia in mid-November, which had marked the first senior-level meeting between the two nations in four years.

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided Saturday to postpone the bilateral talks in the face of North Korea's announcement of plans to launch an "earth observation satellite", said Kyodo.

Japanese Defence Minister Satoshi Morimoto issued an order to the Self-Defence Forces to prepare for destroying North Korea's rocket if necessary in case of its launch, reported the agency.

"I have determined it will be difficult to hold the meeting from a comprehensive standpoint, and I informed the other party of my postponement decision," Kyoda quoted Noda as saying.

His comments came after a meeting of relevant ministers, attended by Morimoto, Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura convened to discuss how to deal with the issue, Kyodo said.

"It will be quite regrettable if the launch is carried out. The international society, including Japan, will have to respond to it in a decisive manner," Kyodo reported Noda as saying.

Japan said it would work closely with the United States, South Korea and China to dissuade North Korea from going ahead with the launch, Jiji Press news agency had earlier reported, quoting government officials.

Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic ties and have long been at odds, with Tokyo pressing Pyongyang to come clean over past abductions of Japanese nationals and its nuclear ambitions.

In 2002 Pyongyang admitted its agents had kidnapped Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and customs.

North Korea maintains Japan has not made up for its wartime aggression and demands compensation and atonement.

North Korea announced Saturday it will launch a rocket later this month, triggering condemnation from the US and racking up tensions with South Korea which is just days from a presidential election.

It will be the North's second long-range rocket launch this year following a much-hyped but failed attempt in April.

In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Korean Committee for Space Technology said the new bid would be carried out between December 10 and 22.

The United States and South Korea urged Pyongyang to scrap the launch, while Tokyo reportedly postponed talks due next week with North Korea and ordered its military to prepare to shoot down the rocket if it goes over Japan.

Washington warned that the "highly provocative" plan would destabilise the region.

"Devoting scarce resources to the development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles will only further isolate and impoverish North Korea," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The South Korean foreign ministry said the planned launch was a "deeply provocative act" that defied UN resolutions and would have significant repercussions for the already isolated state.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the postponement of the talks scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing, Kyodo news agency said, which were due after a meeting last month between the countries' diplomats in Mongolia.

Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto ordered the military to prepare to shoot down the rocket if it, or part of its debris, looked likely to come down on Japanese territory, Jiji Press reported.

As in April, the North said it would be a purely "peaceful, scientific" mission aimed at placing a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite into orbit.

The US and its allies insist the launches are disguised tests for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

As such they would contravene UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

They say the North's Unha-3 rocket is actually a three-stage variant of the Taepodong-2 ICBM that Pyongyang has been developing for years but has never tested successfully.

Saturday's announcement ended weeks of intense speculation, based on satellite image analysis, that the North was preparing a fresh launch from its Sohae satellite launch station.

South Korea had repeatedly warned in recent months that the North would seek to destabilise the situation on the Korean peninsula ahead of the South's presidential election on December 19.

"We sternly warn if the North goes ahead with the launch, it will face strong countermeasures from the international community," Saturday's foreign ministry statement said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also called on Pyongyang to call off the launch, warning it would "damage the prospects for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula".

On Thursday the UN Security Council had warned Pyongyang that going ahead with another launch would be "extremely inadvisable".

Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul suggested it was timed to coincide with the first anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un assuming power following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il on December 17.

"It plans to launch the rocket as a kind of celebratory firework," Yang said.

"North Korea lost face when it failed with the April attempt and Kim Jong-Un thinks amends need to be made," he added.

The North's statement said scientists had analysed April's failure -- when the rocket exploded after take-off -- "and deepened the work of improving the reliability and precision of the satellite and carrier rocket".

The April launch put a halt to the latest international effort to engage North Korea, with the United States calling off plans to deliver badly needed food assistance.

The KCNA statement said the December mission would "fully comply" with relevant international regulations governing satellite launches.

"A safe flight path has been chosen so that parts of the carrier rocket that might fall during the launch process would not affect neighbouring countries," it said.

The announcement came just days after South Korea had been scheduled to carry out its own satellite launch in a bid to join the global space club.

The attempt was postponed at the last minute due to a technical problem and a new mission date has yet to be finalised.

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency.
All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement